More back-pedaling as Stone tones down the rhetoric in newly-released trailer

After pulling its earlier inflammatory trailer (the first of the "vanishing Pandoras") - that included Michael Shellenberger suggesting those who believed the high predictions of Chernobyl-caused fatalities had fallen prey to a vast "conspiracy" and claims by Mark Lynas that Chernobyl had harmed almost no one; there were no increased cancer indences among liquidators and so on; and that deliberately attempted to ridicule anti-nuclear activists; director Robert Stone has released a new, toned-down trailer. This one endeavors to make Pandora's Promise sound less like the propaganda piece it is and more "balanced" and rational. It remains to be seen whether the aforementioned Chernobyl health references by Shellenberger and Lynas - whose content has been totally discredited even by those who still espouse more conservative Chernobyl cancer predictions - remain in the film, which may have been re-cut since its Sundance debut. The new trailer appears on the website of Rolling Stone magazine with an accompanying blurb that fails to challenge the film's thesis. However, we have responded in the comments section below the Rolling Stone promo - which craftily includes links to pages which document to reckless continued use of the Fukushima-style reactors in the US; and the litany of near-misses at US reactors.

Update on April 30, 2013 by admin

In the film blurb on the Rolling Stone website, Brand asks" Can you be an environmentalist and be pro-nuclear?" We responded in the comments section:

Well obviously the answer to Stewart Brand's first question is "no" unless he is completely re-defining the term "environmentalist" which in fact this film endeavors to do. Nuclear power is an extractive industry: that during the uranium mining, which is necessary to provide its fuel, radioactively contaminates soil, water and air; depletes precious water resources; sickens those who mine the uranium; and leaves behind thousands of tons of deadly waste tailings; that routinely releases cancer-causing radioactivity during operation of electricity-generating reactors and in even larger quantities during reprocessing; is a carbon-intensive industry at certain phases of its fuel chain; creates deadly waste that is radioactive for tens and even hundreds of thousands of years with no "disposal" solution; destroys ecosystems, and wildlife, including endangered species during daily reactor operation; and, if it goes wrong, can kill and harm countless numbers of people across generations and render areas uninhabitable for the indefinite future. By what definition is someone like Brand (or Shellenberger, or Lynas) who supports nuclear power an "environmentalist?" This film is a propaganda vehicle for The Breakthrough Institute and, if it was honest in its publicity, would state that it features "former environmentalists who now support nuclear power." For more, see the "Pandora's False Promises" page on the Beyond Nuclear website.http://www.beyondnuclear.org/p...